Dark Golden Moons
by writer-person-thingy
Summary: The feeling is gone and numb, frozen inside her body. There, but lurking in the silence. Hidden and lost as it is with her state, she can no longer detect it in the darkness.


_**Dark Golden Moons**_

_**Title: **_Dark Golden Moons

_**Author: **_writer-person-thingy

_**Prompt: **__Fear_—from the Apple a Day Bella/Carlisle fanfic/fanart challenge! =)

_**Genre: **_Angst and…more angst!

_**Rating: **_PG I suppose…

_**Word Count: **_917

_**Spoilers: **_New Moon, if you squint

_**Summary: **_The feeling is gone and numb, frozen inside her body. There, but lurking in the silence. Hidden and lost as it is with her state, she can no longer detect it in the darkness.

* * *

Isabella Marie Swan had been afraid before. Many of times; many of ways, to be exact. In different magnitudes, even. From the slight, stressful worry of an overdue library book to being petrified for her very own life. She had seen one side of the spectrum only to be forcefully thrown to the other. Sadness coupled with fear brought depression; something else she had experienced, and knew well. Exhaustion added to the mix, sprinkled with anger, and soon she was catatonic.

But now, events in her life caused her to be genuinely afraid. More so than ever. It was mainly the foreign feeling of actually _feeling_. She had been locked in darkness so long; kept in a white, white box. But she wouldn't have known; there was never light and her eyes were never open. She simply sat there, waiting upon death to come.

It had first started when her father brought her in, a father whose name she had forgotten. Many, many things she had forgotten; like her birthday, her parents, her reason for being where she was. But that was key; if she didn't know why she was here, she had no way of improving. Which meant she was trapped in this darkness, awaiting an escape.

She remembered sadness; a great, gaping pain in her abdomen, pulsing with loss and grief. She remembered crunching leaves and pattering rain. And she also remembered…howling. The eerie, mysterious call of one wolf to the other. Golden moonlight and dreary green. That was all her mind allowed her to take, and she clung to it with all the sanity she still possessed. It was the rope over the rocky waters below; the single ray of light in her darkness. But like everything else; it was wearing on with time and thinning. She was _forgetting_, day by day, night by night.

Still, sometimes the wounds were back, reminding her again and shedding a false hope that she could understand why she was stuck in darkness; buried alive here. Maybe even something to tell her which direction was up so she could dig herself out. But it would only simmer before her rope dissipated to a thread; and then all she could remember was two golden eyes; foreign with their kindness.

There were flashes of silver, at times; gasps of pain until her eyes shut of their own accord. Her weakening mind would shut itself off for days at a time as she was able to loll off, still in her fetal position and still aching inside. Still catatonic and unable to speak. That was what worried the people around her the most.

But what was she to say?

With no recollection of any of her life, with no hope left, and with a spirit destroyed to mere dust, she was left with nothing. If the will to live was gone, surely the will to speak had gone first? Because that was what she was; a broken mess of nothing. She lie there, limp as they moved her and shifted her. The ones that guarded her physical cage (she had two—one outside and inside her mind) would get tired of seeing her lie in the same spot for hours, not moving and not trying. There was no _resistance_ when it came to her; she let the smell of death and sound of screams carry her farther away from reality. She relished every mile.

But through all this, no matter what happened to her, her mind never allowed her to forget the feeling of fear; the rush of adrenaline through her veins, the jump of her muscles, the need to flee. She recalled every detail; from the smallest twitch of her lip to whole shudders of her body. Never could she forget _fear_. But this was the only way for her to feel it, of course. Even when surrounded by electricity, death, the heavy musk of medication and hate, she feels no more fear. She never muses that it's been used to the point of being nothing, just as the rest of her.

And yet still, there is always a small twinge; deep in the pits of her blackened, damaged heart, something moves and contracts whenever she sees those deep, looming, golden eyes in front of her. They are just barely out of reach; but so very far, and too hard to get to. Like the gateway that only moves farther as she steps toward it. And so she gives up before she even starts.

Looking up at her imaginary stars in her imaginary meadow, something finally shifts and seals inside her. Defining moments flash through her eyes, beams of light and blurs of sound. Cutting and stitching and sewing of flesh; the smell of death sanitized a thousand times over and she's _happy_ being here. Seeing him. The very air around her is no longer just _air_; it's been electrified as her whole perspective shifts, her whole being and meaning. The night has brightened and warmed and finally she is not so immersed in darkness, not so angry nor sad or numb. She is herself, finally afraid as the door slams open; her newly awakened reason for being standing, panting, hair gold as his eyes used to be; hundreds of years of control now broken with a fiery red. And finally, she is afraid; the feeling foreign, familiar, hated and welcome all at once. He stared at her, she at him, and the world seems to connect in that moment.

* * *

_**Alright, The Volturi's finest, an awesom author, (http: // www .fanfiction. net/u/ 1564466) told me about this awesome challenge, and I went and did some little crappy drabble on it. I tried (and failed) to be poetic, so here it is. This cool little challenge is all about Bella/Carlisle. Basically, you get a huge table of prompts to choose from, and you have to pick a vacant one, and then you write something off that one word. There's more to it, though; seriously suggest you check it out. Worth it! (http: // community .livejournal. com/twilightrarely/1733 . html?view=38597#t38597) =)**_


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